Estate agents demand urgent help for landlords’ boiler upgrades
Propertymark is warning that a housing crisis looms unless the Government expands its financial support for energy efficiency improvements.
Industry body Propertymark is demanding increased financial support for landlords, warning that without it, many will sell properties rather than spend thousands on green upgrades including boiler upgrades.
Responding to the Government’s consultation on the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, its policy and campaigns chief Timothy Douglas (pictured) said the current scheme is falling short of helping landlords meet the new minimum energy efficiency standards for new tenancies in 2028 and 2030 for existing ones.
He added: “Around 48% of homes in England fall below EPC C, with a particularly high concentration of these in the private rented sector.”
But current financial support, he adds, is woefully inadequate, with the average cost of installing an air source heat pump hitting £13,000 while the maximum grant remains just £7,500.
The cost of such upgrades is often out of reach for landlords.”
The scheme, launched in April 2022, has managed just over 54,000 installations by the end of May 2025 – a figure that highlights the scale of the challenge ahead.
Financial pressure has already led a third of landlords to consider selling properties in the next five years, which Propertymark warns will reduce rental supply and worsen the housing crisis.
Douglas explained: “The cost of such upgrades is often out of reach for landlords, many of whom operate small portfolios and rely on rental income to manage rising mortgage rates and maintenance costs.”
The organisation argues that the current narrow focus on specific technologies doesn’t reflect the varied property types across the rental sector.
Not suitable
Many homes, such as flats within blocks or coastal properties, are not suitable for heat pumps due to space constraints or equipment corrosion risks.
Douglas says: “In a survey of our members, agents reported that the grant amount was insufficient to make installation viable for many landlords”.
Propertymark wants grant levels to cover at least 80% of installation costs, with means testing available to support those in greatest need.
I know landlords who have had their period solid-wall houses assessed for heat pumps by the likes of Octopus, and had their applications refused because the building’s heat losses are too high, even when they have double-glazing and loft insulation to full building regulation standards. The only remaining insulation method that will even approach the U-value required is full wall insulation: either internally, which means the tenants need to move out and destroys all attractive historic interior features , as well as making the rooms smaller, or externally, which again covers over beautiful historic brickwork, gabling etc in favour of deadly-dull white render and even require roofs to be extended as the overhang is insufficient.
One landlord who sought a quote for External Wall Insulation (EWI) on a medium-sized D-rated 160m2 Edwardian detached house was quoted just over £30,000, and that’s before the cost of the heat pump and the mechanical ventilation system that would be required to prevent mould in the newly-sealed box created by the EWI. And this is not an unusual property by any means. The notion that landlords with period properties can reach EPC C by spending £8-10,000 – says the Climate Change Committee – is just ludicrous.
£50,000-odd to reach EPC level C by 2028 means the only viable option is to sell the house and remove it from the PRS. Even if landlords had that kind of cash available, why spend so much to save tenants perhaps £500 a year on their fuel bills, and knowing that sometime in the 2030s, the Government is going to hit you extremely hard again by demanding that all rental houses must now achieve EPC level A?